> So, the banning worked. There is no opinions you don't like on the internet anymore?
The "exodus" events were never about silencing __opinions__. They were about destroying __actions__.
In the case of 4chan and Gamergate, the Gamergaters were constantly Doxxing people and Swatting people online. Because these doxxing events and swatting events have mostly stopped, I can absolutely say that it was a success.
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In the case of GameFAQs LUEsers, it was a matter of "mods are asleep, post pornography" on child-friendly sections of the site (Like Pokemon and whatnot). Large scale coordinated efforts to troll and harass.
That behavior largely stopped once LUE was silenced. Everyone agreed that free-speech was important, but not when that speech was used to disrupt and destroy the community. (IE: Coordinating widespread trolling efforts).
Twitter, Facebook, and other mainstream sites are finally coming to terms with this reality. Heck, even Reddit had its exodus events when it banned /r/TheFappening, /r/jailbait, /r/WatchPeopleDie, /r/CreepShots, and other groups.
Everyone is for freedom of speech, but the line is drawn at obviously abusive behavior. And guess what? Banning those communities works. People stopped making /r/CreepShots when the community was banned.
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Success? Yes. In every instance. Limited albeit: it forced the trolls and /r/CreepShot groups off the site and into worser corners of the internet. But it absolutely curtailed the growth of these communities.
Its a limited success, but one that has clearly worked. More so than naïve hopes of "engaging in debate" with these deplorables. Debate works on reasonable people. But when people decide to be unreasonable, you must enact stricter actions. An exodus event should never be taken lightly, and should only be used as a last resort.
The new webmasters would accept the nomadic group (ie: LUEsers went to Something Awful IIRC), but when their toxic behavior became apparent, the exodus continued (ie: to 4Chan, and then finally to 8chan today).
I'm no "internet historian": there are other people who have far better understanding of how these groups moved about. But from my casual perspective, the pattern of "harass -> banning -> exodus to new website -> harassment -> banning" is cyclical and almost predictable.
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Under no circumstances have I ever seen "debate" actually work to fix the poor behavior of a group. Absolutely never. Period. When a group has reached "critical trolling mass", its no longer about debate, but about harassment, and online intimidation. When you move in to try to engage in a friendly debate, they'll work to release your IP address, your phone number, your Facebook accounts... and harass you in the real world (and may even start Swatting you).